Of moose and man

Visitors to the National Parks of the American West know and love moose. But they may be surprised to learn moose are not a native species. Shawn Regan, from the Property and Environment Research Center, explains: “Most early explorers of the American West and Yellowstone did not encounter moose on their travels. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that moose were documented in Yellowstone and only in the last century did moose become common in many western states, in large part because of man. To take the area ‘back to nature,’ a traditional ecological understanding would actually require the removal of the moose! Truth is, nature is a human conception. Our values shape what it looks like. Human action is part of the natural world, not the antithesis of it.”